


Bring Him Back

by lilipad_tea



Series: Missing Pieces [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Childhood Memories, Claudia Stilinski Feels, Flashbacks, Mind Games, let's explore Stiles' brain, saving Stiles through the power of friendshiiiiiiiip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 10:59:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1855612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilipad_tea/pseuds/lilipad_tea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia drifts through all of these memories, trying to find something strong enough to lock onto.  The Nogitsune is laughing, but whether he's behind her or the sound is still echoing, Lydia can't tell.  She starts feeling sick again, worry curling into her stomach, urgency reminding her she hasn't got much time.  And she can't bear to lose Stiles she just can't, he's always been there, how is she going to carry on if he's suddenly just... not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bring Him Back

**Author's Note:**

> Basically I wanted a bit more from the sequence inside Stiles' mind. Specifically, as the biggest thing Scott and Lydia have in common with Stiles is their shared childhood, I wanted to see this used. So I wrote this! (Also this isn't intended as Stydia but as I kinda ship that a lot there may be some emotional/romantic tension?)

It's nauseating, really.  Peter had warned her it would hurt, smiling as he said so.  She had ignored him, figured he meant emotionally or psychologically but no.  He was right.  Every brain cell is screaming at her, telling her to stay inside her own mind, and as the black grey red mess spins in her eyes Lydia has to fight the urge to vomit.  
This had better work.  

 She's in the school.  For a moment she wonders why, then wonders why she's wondering.  A world of memories is scratching at the back of her mind like a dream, but as she walks through the corridor they fade, replaced by worry.  Jackson. (was it Jackson?  She has to find him she has to find someone...) Somehow she knows he's in trouble.  They're all in trouble.  She can feel menace like a breath over her shoulder, footsteps getting closer, a snarl in the near distance.

She starts to run.  There are balloons everywhere why are there balloons everywhere?  They trip her, slow her, plastic dragging across her skin.  And the corridor is unchanging no matter how fast she runs.  No no no this can't happen this is impossible she has to find him she has to help him...

She falls.  A figure leers at her from a darkened classroom.  Mocking, laughing.  

"You won't find him here," he hisses, and his voice sounds like manic despair.

This is wrong.  Lydia squeezes her eyes shut and she can smell damp grass, the cold air filling her lungs so suddenly she gasps.  

"Just kill me.  I don't care anymore."

His voice cracks, broken, despairing.  Lydia wants to scream at him to survive, not to give up, to come back.  It's so stupid and selfish and wasteful to throw your life away on sacrifice.  Wasn't that what he had told her?  There is mud in her mouth, and she can't move no matter how much she silently screams.  Her whole body is alien, detached, the blood soaking into the satin of her dress.  And Stiles is gone.

Lydia tears herself from the ground and stands and opens her eyes. It's bright.  She's not on the lacrosse field in her bloodstained dress.  And she remembers that she's not the frantic frightened girl any more, the damsel in distress.  There's someone she has to save instead.

"You think you can save him?"  The voice is the same as before, just as mocking, just as terrifying.  "You think there's anything of him left to save?"

Lydia ignores it, marches forward.  But there's nothing to march foward to.  The whole room is empty, glaring whiteness stretching for miles.

"He's not heeeere..." sings the voice and Lydia narrows her eyes.

"Of course not," she snaps.  "Because this isn't anywhere.  Don't think you can trap me into your idiotic mind games."

A laugh echoes between the pillars, more deafening on each repeat.  "But you're already trapped! Already playing!"

"hm." Lydia purses her lips and tilts her head.  "Please.  This is Stiles' mind.  It's hardly like breaking into a bank vault."

There's that laugh again and Lydia hides a shudder.  "You think you know him?  You!  The Mighty Lydia Martin, who never deigned to give poor pathetic Stiles a second glance?  He was invisible to you!"

She smiles.  Walks over to a pillar.  "I should thank you," she calls out as she touches the cool stone.  "Now I know where to find him."

"You can't leave this place!"  The voice is furious.

Blue paint bleeds out from her fingertips, spreading across the stone to form a door.  A square of paint pales, forms glass, and through the window she can see her third grade classroom, dingy as ever in the afternoon light.

"Word of advice."  She grabs the handle, shoots a triumphant grin over her shoulder.  "Next time you play mind games?  Try competing against someone who stoops to match your IQ."

Lydia opens the door, walks inside, smiles at the roar of anger fading into the distance as she shuts the door behind her.

 

She is 9 years old again, the smell of chalk dust and juice boxes in the air.  Like before she has an inkling that something's different, that there's something important she has to remember, but then it's gone.  Everyone around her is buzzing excitedly, still hyped up on summer fun.  The teacher isn't here yet so no-one is sitting quietly.  Apart from Lydia.  She loves school.  Her summer was nice but mindnumbingly dull: she had devoured all the books in her house in between dance recitals and swimming lessons.  She is desperate for a challenge, thirsty for more knowledge.  So here she sits.  Watching her classmates and waiting. 

One boy in particular catches her eye.  He is by far the most excitable.  He and his friend are in the corner, heads bent and clearly planning something, but he keeps betraying their secrecy with conspicuous flailing limbs and shouted exclamations.  Lydia rolls her eyes.  She's noticed him before (it's hard not to) but never spoken to him.  Lydia scrunches up her nose as she thinks.  No, she remembers more of him.  He'd been there on her first day of school.  Shy and unfocused and fiddling with everything in sight.  He isn't much different now, still darting around at every new noise and tapping the table while he talks.  

Then he looks over to her.  It's unsurprising: Lydia realises she's been staring.  He looks embarrassed for a moment, then gives her a little nod and wave.  Lydia smiles, pressing her lips together and looking down bashfully.  She glances back at him and he looks like he's about to say something but then Ms Lytton comes in and snaps at the class to sit down and pay attention and the moment is lost.

The lesson is on the solar system, which delights Lydia.  One of her favourite subjects (out of about a hundred other favourites) is astronomy and astrophysics.  And soon the whole class knows that too.  Each question Ms Lytton asks, Lydia's hand shoots into the air.  The names of the planets, what type of astral body they are, even which constellations they fit into.  And it's great fun... until Ms Lytton smiles condescendingly at the tenth question. 

"Anyone other than Lydia?"

Lydia falters, her hand dropping back down into her lap.  She hears snickering behind her.  Jackson is nudging Danny and whispering.  Catherine looks away awkwardly when Lydia glances at her.  As she casts her eye down to her desk, head bowed in shame, Lydia hears the word "nerd" hissed around the room.

And then something changes.  Little Lydia sits at her desk, blinking back angry tears, coming to the harsh realisation that intelligence does not mix well with popularity.  But there is an older Lydia, ghostlike, dreamlike, who looks over to Stiles.  He's gazing at her younger self with a mixture of compassion and respect.

"I've had a crush on you since third grade."

And Lydia realises this is where it starts.  This is how she'll find him.

 

The scene dissolves.  Lydia is 9, is 10, is 11.  She is a rising star, surrounded by people admiring of her blossoming beauty and shining confidence.  

At 9 she sings in the pageant show, swapping her intelligence for more acceptable talents.  And Stiles is there, right at the back, holding his mother's hand and smiling like Lydia is the most important person in the world.  

At 10 she does a class project on cell mitosis with Jackson, Matt, and Danny.  They do nothing but play with the models and chat.  The night before it's due, Lydia is scribbling frantically, doing everyone's work for them.  When she gives it in the next day, dark circles marring her otherwise perfect features, she stays quiet as the others accept the praise.  She swallows her anger.  So they ridicule how hard she works but don't hesitate to use that to their advantage.  Fine.  Back in her seat she glances at Stiles' group, notices dark circles under his eyes too, as his group throws spitballs.  He doesn't notice she's looking at him.

At 11 she starts dating.  Or, the pretend dating that children do which usually consists of a boy claiming a girlfriend to hold hands with at lunch.  Jackson has been sniffing around her for a while but it's Matt she dates first.  Which doesn't last long.  After that she learns to keep everything light and unattached, to have fun with boys but not let them have fun with her.  And she can tell every time she passes him in the hall, or sits close to him in class, Stiles is trying to work up the courage to ask her out.  But she knows he never will.

 

Lydia drifts through all of these memories, trying to find something strong enough to lock onto.  The Nogitsune is laughing, but whether he's behind her or the sound is still echoing, Lydia can't tell.  She starts feeling sick again, worry curling into her stomach, urgency reminding her she hasn't got much time.  And she can't bear to lose Stiles she just can't, he's always been there, how is she going to carry on if he's suddenly just... not.

 

Then she hears crying and her feet are moving, following the sound through shadowed corridors, memories dancing just out of reach.  It's Stiles sobbing.  And as the memory rushes towards her, threatening to swallow her up, Lydia feels the urge to scream...

 

She's in the classroom again and this time she is aware of who she is and why she's here.  Mechanically she watches the scene play out in front of her.  They're halfway through the lesson, and everyone is bored, but from the corner Lydia hears someone quietly hyperventilating.  She turns her head and there's Stiles, hands clenched with white knuckles, eyes staring, breathing rapidly.  Lydia raises an eyebrow.  "He's having a panic attack," she muses to herself.

The boy behind Stiles taps his shoulder.  At the contact he flinches.  "Hey man you ok?"  Stiles shakes his head.  "I just need, I think, I need air, I need to not be, I need air..."

And he bolts.  Runs out of the classroom, leaving amused whispers in his wake.  His friend darts after him but soon returns, says something in a hushed voice to the teacher, who nods.

He sits back down but Stiles' desk is conspicuously empty for the remainder of the lesson.  At lunch Lydia wanders. She is drawn past the cafeteria,  down stairs and through corridors that are empty and echoing.  And outside the door to the boys’ locker room she pauses, listening to the quiet sobs from within.

She knows what happens next.  Lydia does not do well with emotion.  Each night as her parents fight she listens to music, dives into books, sings to herself, anything to drown out the shouting.  They’re going to divorce soon, she’s convinced, and she knows from experience that they will find a way to shove the responsibility on her.  So she just cuts off her hurt, armours herself with false confidence, fiercely protecting the small part of her that feels pain.

And that’s why now she doesn’t go in.  She doesn’t talk to the grieving boy.  Because she can’t.  Instead she helps in the only way she can: she fetches a teacher.  Stiles gets sent home where he can be with his father because that’s what’s best.

But Lydia remembers who she is and why she’s here.  And she steps inside.

 

“Hey.”

Stiles’ face is tear stained and puffy like he hasn’t stopped crying in days.  And he looks like a rabbit in headlights.  “Go away.”

Lydia walks over to where the boy is slumped against the lockers, skinny arms curled around bruised knees.  She sits next to him.  “If I tell you a secret, can I stay?”

He pouts, but is too curious to refuse her.  “Ok.”

“I come down here to cry too, sometimes.”  Stiles’ eyes widen.  “I use the music room though.  It’s warmer.” 

“I don’t do this very often,” Stiles says, fiddling with the buttons of his shirt.  Lydia notices that they’re done up wrong and wonders if his mother usually helps him dress.  She swallows.  “I just sometimes get....  It’s like the walls are closing in on me and I have to get out.”

“Yeah.”  She reaches out a hand, touches his wrist.  It’s cold and his fingers are trembling.  “But everything will be ok.  I know it doesn’t seem like it now but I promise.  You’ll be alright.”

Stiles smiles weakly, mutters a thank you.  Then, “wait a minute.”  He looks up, confused.  “This isn’t how this goes.  Lydia, what-”

Triumphant, Lydia opens her mouth to explain but there’s a rushing noise in her ears and the room is getting darker and Stiles is fading.  She wants to scream at the Nogitsune’s laugh close behind her but she can’t breathe can’t see and then

She’s somewhere else entirely.

 

The world tilts and she’s lying down, softness beneath her, warm and tucked up in a bed that isn’t hers.  She’s with him.  The walls are bare, no web of red thread, and Stiles is moaning in his sleep, whispering snatches of sentences that make no sense.

Lydia remembers this.  This was a dream: she’d woken up terrified at having Stiles in her head, but passed it off as a side effect of their quest to find the Nematon. 

And now it’s playing out just as it did before.  Stiles wakes up, breathing heavily and on the verge of tears.  She does her best to comfort him in the way she knows best, stroking his shoulder and holding his hand.  Physical contact is so much simpler and easier than talking.  Then he realises something isn’t right and she’s pleading with him, begging him to stay, not to walk through that door because she can hear _him_ , the Nogitsune, on the other side.  Lydia understands now that this is how it happened.  This is how the parasite slipped in.  
Stiles is moving, walking through the door but this time Lydia follows him.

 

The door leads right back to that locker room, empty now, the sound of young Stiles sobbing still quietly echoing.  Lydia is enraged, wants to punch something, wants to cry with exhaustion because she’s just running in circles and she’ll never save him.

“Lydia, what are you doing here?”

It’s his voice, Stiles’ voice, and she spins around to see him standing there.  He’s still in his pyjamas and he looks as exhausted and furious as her.

“What do you think I’m doing?  I’m rescuing you.”  She wants to run to him but she feels like if she does he’ll disappear again so she stays still.

“Maybe I don’t want to be rescued.”  There’s a hitch in young Stiles’ sobbing.  They’re stuck in this memory.

“This is how you feel, isn’t it,” Lydia says, knowing the answer.  “You’re lost and scared and you miss her, just like you did years ago.”  Stiles flinches, and Lydia takes a step forward.  “So you’re hiding here.  But you don’t have to, we can help.  You’re not alone any more, Stiles.” 

She reaches out, and Stiles catches her hand halfway.  His fingers are cold and trembling.  “You shouldn’t be here.”  He drops her hand and turns away.  “Don’t you get it?  I’m protecting you.”

“How?  He’s got you trapped, he’s got all of us trapped!”  Lydia’s voice is raised and Stiles flinches again, but she doesn’t care.  “We need you back,” she says, gently now.  “Please.  I need you to come back.”

She watches his shoulders shake and the sound of his child self crying gets louder.  “What if I don’t want to.”

Something inside Lydia snaps.  She grabs his shoulder, forces him to face her.  “Well, you have to.  You think I’m just going to sit quietly and watch this bastard kill you?  Leech everything from you until there’s nothing left?  You’re the one who told me sacrifice is pointless, so take your own damn advice.  Stand up, fight back!”  Stiles is shocked, his eyes searching, and the crying is quiet.  Laughing softly, Lydia says, “what am I gonna do without you, Stiles?  Who’s going to figure everything out?”

He smiles ruefully.  “You do a pretty good job at that yourself.”

“Ok, but who’s gonna annoy us all with sarcastic comments?  I could never be quite as aggravating as you.”

“Right, you’re just a ray of sunshine.”

Her hand hand is still on his shoulder and she can’t hear the crying any more.  Stiles seems calmer. 

“Lydia, I-”

 

This time there’s no manic laugh, no dark fade, no warning of any kind.  Lydia is back in the white room, alone.  Stiles is gone.  
And Lydia is close to giving up.


End file.
